Deconstruction for Reuse and Reuse in Turn: Thoravej 29

SPACE February 2026 (No. 699)

 

 

 

 

Interview Søren Pihlmann Principal, pihlmann architects × Park Jiyoun 

 

 

Park Jiyoun (Park): Thoravej 29 is the renovation of a building which was originally constructed as a factory in 1967 (until recently, it was used as a support centre for people with disabilities) into a multi-purpose community facility. 3D surveying, scanning, and past photographs and blueprints were used to analyse the existing building. What defining characteristics of the existing building did you uncover in each of these studies?
Søren Pihlmann (Pihlmann): The 3D survey, archival drawings and photographs were not used to reconstruct an original state, but to understand the building as an accumulated system. The scans revealed geometric tolerances, deviations, and structural redundancies that are typically flattened out in drawings. This made it possible to identify elements with hidden potentials as opposed to obvious functions. This is where the building starts to read less as ‘a plan’ and more as a production system. The archival material provided insight into production logics and load-bearing principles, while traces found on site revealed how the building had already been adapted over time. Together, these sources described the building less as a finished object and more as a working structure shaped by use, modification and maintenance. It became a spatial guide, not as nostalgia, but as evidence of how the building already learned to adapt.  ​

 

Park: Given the change in the building’s purpose, you must have required diverse materials to realise its new functions and spatial concepts. However, you chose to reuse 95% of the existing materials. Did you manage to fulfil all re...

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